Archive for the 'Web' Category

Page 3 of 5

Enough of IE6 already

Published on Monday, March 23, 2009 in Browsers, Business, Code, Design, Trend, User Experience and Web. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Let’s all shout loud and clear that we have had enough of having to cater for Internet Explorer 6, the quirks, the endless limitations and overall reduced user experience. Found this on Bowman‘s site. It is a link to a manifesto / petition to encourage people to move away from IE6, get a life and make the life of people creating HTML just that much easier and interesting for end users. IE6 does not comply with any standards other than those of Microsoft and now more than ever just hinders user experience in general. So please spread the word about the issues that IE is creating.
Do check out the site. It looks great and has a wonderful quote from Jeffrey Zeldman, (I translated his witty article Web 3.0 a while back):

“IE6 is the new Netscape 4. The hacks needed to support IE6 are increasingly viewed as excess freight. Like Netscape 4 in 2000, IE6 is perceived to be holding back the web.”

Bring IE6 down screenshot

Bring IE6 down screenshot

Bring down IE6 logo

Hilarious note: Pierre from work, has the same unfortunate task as myself, of having to spend ages testing and modifying HTML templates so they will work in IE6. Take a look at this very funny set of IE6 splash pages, Pierre sent me: http://blog.hugsformonsters.com/post/87657240/overly-judgemental-ie6-splash-pages

Google and design

Published on Sunday, March 22, 2009 in Advertising, Blog, Design, Trend and Web. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

There is no doubt that Google has changed the way people use the Internet; it’s search tool and to a certain extent other great services like GoogleMaps and GMail. I was surprised by learning however about the relationship that Google seems to have with design. Douglas Bowman has just left Google and explains his decision, albeit the reasons behind it in a really interesting article about his experience there. There is an underlying theme of how Google relies too much on data to decide how design decisions should be settled.

I found it fascinating, having worked in the same type of situation and also the opposite, where design is not tested and relies on the gut feeling of the creative people rather than user experience testing. The success of this approach is the luck of the draw though. And even with world class creatives, nobody is perfect and your gut feeling isn’t always going to be the right decision, even if you can convince your entourage it is. Bowman seems to be really good and you can feel the frustration of his creativity being put into question by other aspects or realities of the Google business:

Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. [...] Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

The article Bowman links to on NY Times actually describes the issue and the role that Marissa Mayer had in this story (on page 3):

A designer, Jamie Divine, had picked out a blue that everyone on his team liked. But a product manager tested a different color with users and found they were more likely to click on the toolbar if it was painted a greener shade.
As trivial as color choices might seem, clicks are a key part of Google’s revenue stream, and anything that enhances clicks means more money. Mr. Divine’s team resisted the greener hue, so Ms. Mayer split the difference by choosing a shade halfway between those of the two camps.

You feel you’re getting a peak view and understanding of an event, like watching the intrigue of you favourite TV show unfold. In this case though the importance of the debate and the impact that each party could have, can affect the crucial services that Google offer. On the one hand you can say that Google have an impressive track record, on the other, you wonder whether innovative and creative solutions aren’t stifled in the process. Too much creative lead ‘can’ damage the best overall user experience without proper testing. But never taking a chance with a different creative approach can result in uniformity / dullness. I do feel that design, when applied to services and products that thousands or millions of people will use, should be tested by people from different backgrounds to see how well they interact with it. This may again be considered data, but real live people testing your work is going to happen sooner or later, hopefully…

Is the Internet as safe as we think…?

Published on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 in Society, Tech and Web. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Is the Internet itself safe, with more and more internet users each day? Should the ‘deep internet’ be interconnected with all it’s hidden information ?

In a time of recession it is clear that gloomy ideas are more common and a very interesting article on nytimes.com discusses the difficulties of the current Internet system as we know it and love it. There are serious security issues with the way Internet enables attacks to be carried out via the Internet on systems, and even how whole sections of the Internet can be throttled through malicious attacks. Defenses or rather ways that it is being patched are referred to as a Maginot Line approach.

There are currently over a billion internet users since December 2008 according to comScore World Metrix. This survey in Canada (in French) shows how even though Internet is starting to dominate the media world, people are still far more likely to trust TV as a source of information than the Internet.

And even though you think that Google is giving you good results this article on the NY times explains that what is called the ‘Deep Internet’ is holding out on our friends at Google, or is it the other way round… Search engines only cover a small part of the Internet with numerous services and data that is not indexed. But this joins the initial paragraph in that it is probably better that way, since the information is often highly sensitive and should not be available to just anyone…

How much is that blog worth in my window?

Published on Monday, March 2, 2009 in Blog, Business and Web. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Just read MacIntyre’s great post about the value of blogs out there. We are of course talking about professional sites that are not really on par with the likes of the majority of blogs out there though. You’re talking about people who make a living out of writing on their blogs (or getting others to write for them). MacIntyre created a previous top 25 list of blogs and their valuation in 2008, he’s back again with another list for 2009 of the top 25 blogs.
As we are nearly all faced with the reduction in spending on advertising, one would expect sites like the ones listed in 2008 to have dropped in their ‘value’. I mean Wall Street are having hard times so it seems normal that this would have a ricochet effect on the rest of us. But it seems that it isn’t necessarily the case for all, and on the contrary some of the sites listed have gained value… It’s like christmas come early ;)

Using AJAX properly, the way Google likes it

Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 in Code, Design, Tech and Web. 0 Comments

A very interesting article has been posted over at SoftwareDeveloper.com about using AJAX so that your site isn’t hiding content from the likes of Google : How to : Get Google and AJAX to play nicely.
The article gives some good examples of what to avoid doing and alternative methods to those generally used that will probably be more efficient. AJAX is a great addition to have, just make sure that you are not blinding the search engines from reading your content when you use it !

You Tube : the phenomenon

Published on Monday, October 2, 2006 in Marketing, Trend, Video and Web. 0 Comments

There is nothing like bad publicity the ad people will tell you. Well, You Tube is making the headlines with bad, good and excellent media coverage !

You Tube has made uploading video to the Internet in order to share it, a simple procedure. Sharing videos really is dead easy. Although tagging the content efficiently is still to come, their site is also full of interesting functions.

you tube mtv google yahoo

Media companies realising the potential
When you hear a successful entrepreneur saying this product is never going to work, while at the same time companies like Google, Yahoo, MySpace, MTV… trying desperately to copy them, you’re kind of left puzzled by such comments. The arguments of Mark Cuban are ‘You Tube is just allowing people to upload content they don’t own the rights to’. From a simple perspective though Cuban owns companies (like HDNet) that distribute content just like You Tube. All his content is with copyright owner’s consent though. Wouldn’t that make you mad too – especially if they are likely to be selling it for a lot of money soon ?
Now even though that may be part (even a large part) of You Tube’s content the guy is missing a point and a big one. Cuban doesn’t seem to have noticed how much the Internet is changing things.
You Tube has a massive audience, actually a real community behind it. It is a platform to broadcast a message on. The issues it faces are similar to those that MySpace faces. The big media companies realise this type of platform could potentially be a “highway to heaven” but certainly not a ‘pathway to hell’…

warner music group

An example of this is the deal that You Tube has just signed with Warner Music Group “that will let users embed some Warner wares in their own music videos and amateur flicks”.
The main issue for media companies was the idea of losing money. Attacking the everyday Joe and making his life hell rather than looking for ways to distribute their content intelligently and easily, is slowly being dropped.
Warner’s deal with You Tube like iTunes’ numerous deals for series and films should pave the way for simple and accessible content via the Web.

It is easy to appreciate how a lot of people could miss the trend that led to this. The large media companies have realized that they can capitalise on these massive communities AND make money from it. Hey, they finally realised that the MP3 fiasco and all the legal mayhem surrounding it was really negative for them. The media companies have started to embrace the Internet as a medium to sell their products !

Forbes dossier on You Tube
So when Forbes magazines does a whole dossier on you, do you listen to some entrepreneur who got it right once or twice, or to Forbes ?

An example from the Forbes article (there is a whole dossier actually) on You Tube :

Miles Beckett, a creator of the fictional “lonelygirl15″ videos that lured 900,000 viewers in recent months, foresees the advent of “wiki-television”–where fans get involved in the story; those who provide the most clever responses get a cut of the ad pie. “If the fans generate enough revenue from their videos they can quit their day jobs, too,” Beckett says. “We think it’s such a cool way to tell a story. It is just something you can’t do with the traditional media.”

And this is the example used in the Forbes article, a video you can simply paste into your article just like I’m doing here :

Rewarding video makers
But You Tube receives criticism from companies that have built different models. The Forbes article also talks about Revver and how they distribute, just like Google a portion of the revenue they receive with the creators of the videos. In the same way Netscape is trying to pull away key participants of Digg and pay them to add content to Netscape this type of criticism seems valid :

The amateurs who filmed the geyser effect of Mentos candy jammed into bottles of diet Coke have reaped nearly $35,000 from Revver.

Just as money speaks to the media companies looking for profitable ways to distribute their content legally, video creators who provide real value will not need long to choose between ‘money and fame’ versus ‘fame alone’.

Although You Tube are making more and more big deals this issue will need to be addressed in the medium to long term ! Key community members and followers may feel (like the Digg example) that all their hard work is only filling the pockets of You Tube and turn elsewhere…

Time Zone change on Google Analytics

Published on Friday, September 29, 2006 in Analytics, Blog, News, Tech, Trend and Web. 18 Comments

I’ve been conversing with Google on getting my Time Zone changed from the default ‘Pacific Time’ (GMT-08:00), which is not very handy when you live in Europe like some of us ;)

Please note that if your Analytics account is not linked to an AdWords account, you’ll be able to set your timezone preference from the Main Website Profile Information section of your Profile Settings page. By default, all accounts are set to use Pacific Time.

Further down the email from Google Support states that :

If your Analytics account is linked to a Google AdWords account, your time zone will be automatically set to your AdWords preference and you will not see the time zone feature in your Analytics account. This ensures accurate reporting on your AdWords campaigns. To learn how to set the timezone in your AdWords account, please read
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=35211 in the AdWords help center.

However I tried both suggestions and neither provided me with any way of changing it. I have an Adwords account but had never got round to activating it. I didn’t like the idea that the I would be advertising for anything/anybody. Especially not without any assurance that it wasn’t a scam, or shabby products I don’t believe in and definitely wouldn’t want to endorse in any way.

As you can see here the Google Analytics Account Settings page doesn’t allow me to change the time zone :
Google analytics time zone change

And finally here you can see that my AdWords account does not let me modify a thing either, with regards to the time zone :
Google Change Adwords time zone

So I got back to Google to explain this and well, it seems that you can’t change it, so all of my analytics data is pretty difficult to read at the moment. I’m getting the impression that people start looking at my pages from Europe at about 1 o’clock in the morning. I must appeal to the insomniacs among us !

Please note that though you have not activated your AdWords account, your AdWords and Analytics accounts are already linked. Once you have linked your AdWords and Analytics accounts, the time zone that is set in the AdWords account is automatically set for the Analytics account. This is done to ensure that data is reported accurately for your AdWords campaigns being tracked in Analytics. Therefore John, you may not be able to change the time-zone for your Analytics account.

We apologize for any confusion you may have experienced.

So I am basically stuck with this and never specifically asked for the time zone to be “Pacific Time” (GMT-08:00). There was no warning about the fact that you cannot change this nor that it would then stop me from changing my Analytics time zone settings ! Since I’m not even using AdWords I have now gained a greater distaste for it than before !

So if anybody knows what I can do about changing the time zone on my Google Analytics account I would really appreciate a heads up on what I need to do !

I just wrote to Google, asking them if cancelling the AdWords account, will get rid of the problem…

I must say that the Google Analytics system is really good although not being to change the time zone is a real pain and something that one of the lead programmers obviously forgot to integrate as an option between the two systems. Maybe the linking up with AdWords has caused this issue but regardless of the blame it is a problem that needs to dealt with.

So if you are thinking of using Google Analytics which is really useful, then do remember that your initial Time Zone setting is important !

Update: Paul Hiles has just posted a solution in the comments that I can’t check since I’m writing this from my Blackberry. I’ve copied his comment here so that you don’t have to scroll further down to read it. However if you can test this and confirm it works please let everyone know and conform it works:

The timezone setting is in Adwords, and can only be set once, but if you do make a mistake there is the option to change it (but only once!).
If you are logged into your account, then clicking the link below should automatically open a request form to update your timezone.

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/request.py?contact_type=timezone_change

Changes are carried out by authorised Adwords personnel and are usually complete within one working day (exluding weekends).

Online Marketing and Ads work well with French and British

Published on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 in Advertising, Marketing and Web. 0 Comments

An article published today at Brand Republic discusses the findings of the recent NetObserver Europe report. The “British and French internet users are the most susceptible to online advertising and marketing”. The survey was based on over 170,000 internet users in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Some other interesting findings include the fact that German users are more inclined to buy online and Spanish users are the most prolific at creating blogs.

What is next in blogging, please…

Published on Sunday, September 10, 2006 in Blog, Software, Trend and Web. 0 Comments

Taking a look at the online photo industry may well give you the answer…

If you look at the new battle between Flickr (Yahoo) and Picasa (Google) then you could be faced with what will be happening soon in blogging.
Google is putting the heat on Flickr with its Picasa 2 beta that I have recently been testing. This is a trend setter in online photo sites…

Picasa 2 is not on their web site ! It is Windows based application/software we are talking about (also available for Mac OS X 10.4 or later). You download it and install it on your PC. The current stable version allows you to organise, edit, share your pictures (using extra software called hello) via email, instant messaging etc. It is extremely easy to use. If someone told me it was Apple software ported to PC I would understand better why it was so user friendly. It has been available since mid-summer so Picasa 2 beta is not the news here.

The version 2 beta of Picasa lets you upload pictures from your PC to your Picasa web album.

So you’re thinking that sounds cool and all, but what does this have to do with blogging ? Well everything. As I’ll explain now the ease of use and simplicity readily available on your computer is a real winner…

I realised when I opened an account at Flickr for my Dad that it was far too much for him. He looked on, wide-eyed, trying to follow the steps I indicated to him about uploading pictures and then organising them in sets. I knew he used the current stable version of Picasa and loves it. I understood I was faced with a dilemma.

Do I create a Picasa web account and show him how to use it and drop the advantages of Flickr ?

  1. I can use the static images in my blog, directly from Flickr, I can’t with Picasa
  2. I can use them in a photo gallery, directly from Flickr, I can’t with Picasa

Or do I continue with Flickr, knowing that my Dad will probably not feel courageous enough to use it ! Hint to Picasa here about changing this maybe so that I will have no reason not to use Picasa ?

As you can see below I have the set of photos I selected in Picasa on my PC, and in less than a minute my pictures are up on the Picasa web site !

This is the initial Picasa page with my set of travel images, I click on “Web Album” :
Picasa Image Sets

Then I log into my account (you can ask Picasa to remember this) :
Picasa Web Log In

Next, Picasa starts uploading all the selected photos (you can choose what size to upload) :
Picasa uploading my photos

And here are the uploaded photos on Picasa.

This is where the comparison hit me !

Blogging is the same. Until there is an application to create blogs which is as easy to use as Picasa, people will shy away from great systems like WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger etc. Note I said “as easy to use”. You need to have used Picasa and see how easy other people find it to use.

I’m not talking about changing the look of your blog, nor about the Tiger Admin from orderedlist.com which does wonders for the WordPress admin panel. I’m talking about a piece of software that you can download and runs on your PC, allowing you to create your post, preview it and then upload everything to your blog.
What is needed is a piece of software like Picasa 2, very stylish and trendy, but most of all, simple to use and understand. My Dad took to it and likes using it, he was really enthusiastic about it, so it is something worth writing home about !

Making blogging easy will be a winner. People like me, who design sites, code new stuff into their blogs and use beta versions of skins/presentations for blogs like K2 are a small percentage of the population.
A successful system will need to think about the majority of the population that will find the WP admin panel or any other web based panel system currently available so daunting they’ll rarely use it so they’ll rarely blog.

So I’d like to call on Google, Yahoo or Apple to create a piece of software for blogging (for PC, Unix & Mac) as described above, with maybe a spell checker, saving draft versions and uploading everything automatically to the blog of your choice. You’ll find people will not only blog but they’ll blog about your cool software and tell all their friends about it. We’ll have a blogging star system. For the VC lot among you, yes this means either a star or maybe even a cash cow !

The IE7 site did you say ?

Published on Thursday, September 7, 2006 in Advertising, Fun and Web. 0 Comments

Have you taken a look at the new and very pretty web site at IE7.com ?

No, oh well please do it’s really worth the trip from here to there, it’s a great advert :)

Link from the man in blue.